His Silver Sorcery
by Bluetape
Summary: Komui chanced upon Allen's talents in a brothel and recruits him into the Order of Imperial Sorcerers. His new life is not made easy by Kanda nor the government, and now it seems that Allen's power has more than what meets the eye?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter OneThe New Beginning

The two guards standing watch on one of the several back gates into the Imperial palace grounds witnessed a strange sight that early morning. It wasn't a very common thing to see the overseeing Senior Imperial Sorcerer dressed in his gaudy party attire that had obviously worn overnight hastily ushering in another cloaked figure into the palace.

As was their duty, they stopped the sorcerer before he entered.

"Sir Komui, good morning." One of the guards lightly bowed his helmed head. "And may we inquire about your guest, sir?"

Komui patted the smaller cloaked figure at his side, prompting the figure to tip his hood back to reveal his face. Underneath the thick, grey woolen hood was a small, narrow face of a young boy the guard had never seen before. Despite the youthful age, the boy had a strange silver hair. However, the attention of the two guards failed to linger on the curious color of the boy's hair, for the frail beauty of the boy's visage greatly distracted them from noticing anything else.

Upon noticing the rather blatant stares of the guards, Komui cleared his throat to regain their attention.

"A new apprentice," he said. "Recruited him last night, and he will be soon officially notified to the court."

"Of course, sir." said the guard, tearing his eyes away from the boy with some effort. "Excuse us."

"Nay, gentlemen. As you were." Raising a hand in an appreciative gesture, he led the boy into the gate.

They crossed a wide courtyard of cobblestones and trees, and then entered a wide hallway that was open into the yard on one side. The open hallway seemed to form the exterior circumference of several palace buildings, and occasionally opened up on both walls to temporarily form a completely open road that crossed a garden or a small man-made stream. After a few minutes of following the road in a maze-like fashion, they met another gate of a wall that surrounded another secluded area within the palace grounds.

The boy opened his mouth for the first time in a long time. "What is this place?"

"The sorcerers' quarters. It occupies a corner of the palace grounds, which is vast enough for it. Komui replied. He pressed his right palm onto the surface of the black gate, and the moment his hand was in full contact with the metal, the heavy gate began to open slowly on its own.

Before entering, Komui turned to face the boy with a serious expression.

"Now, Allen. Upon entering this place, you will be admitted as the potential member of the Black Order of imperial sorcerers. It is not a decision to be made on a whim. I know I had rather dragged you into this, so I have to ask: are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure…to a certain point." The boy called Allen answered cautiously. "This is a bit sudden, so I won't lie and assure you that I will never doubt my decision. But I will hold responsibility for my own choices, regardless of how my opinions may change in the future."

"Good answer. I like you, boy." Komui gave Allen a brisk brush through his hair.

As they passed through the black gates, Komui saw Allen shudder slightly at a new sensation. The domain of sorcerers was packed with sorcerous energy that was closely contained by the walls surrounding the quarters. The sudden exposure to the energy was an unpleasant feeling to those who were unused to it, though to Komui it was a rather welcomed sensation. It felt like homecoming.

"What was that?" asked Allen in a slightly startled voice. "It felt…odd…"

"These walls do more than to stop occasional overly-curious servants from venturing into our quarters, Allen." Komui chuckled. "Because of all the magical activities within this place, it's dangerous to let all the energy seep out into the surroundings without a method of channeling it safely. So these walls form a magical barrier to contain the sorcerous energy until we figure out a use for all that excessive energy. Because of all that buildup, there's a dramatic difference in energy density on either sides of that gate. You don't feel weird anymore, do you?"

Allen shook his head. "No, the sensation's gone now. I guess I'm used to it already."

"That's right. Because you already are magically potent, the sorcerous energy in the atmosphere reacts nicely with you and forms equilibrium quite quickly. Had you been a normal boy with no sorcerous powers, you'd be nearly throwing up within about fifteen minutes."

"Pleasant." Allen remarked, raising his eyebrows.

They were now walking on vast, flat cobblestone grounds that were peppered with large, elaborate buildings of strange architecture. Somewhere further away, an ominously tall and black tower stood far above the roofs of other buildings.

Komui pointed towards the tower with his chin. "That's probably the most magical place in the entire empire; where all the _terrifying_ _and monstrous god-knows-what_ objects and secrets are held, supposedly." He chuckled to himself. "Which is...actually, quite true."

Allen could only eye the intimidating tower warily, not sure whether to laugh. However, before he could do anything, a new voice called out loudly from a distance.

"Hey! Sir Komui!"

They both turned to see a man with spiky blond hair waving at Komui. He soon approached them.

"Good morning, Reever." Komui greeted.

"And the same to you," Reever nodded, then looked at Allen closely. "Who's the kid?"

"Ah…excuse us for a moment, Allen." Komui said, and then pulled Reever a little distance away from Allen as to not let him hear their conversation.

Seeing Komui's secretive behavior, Reever's eyes widened. "Wait a sec, you went to the viscount's party last night, didn't you? You're still wearing your awful dress robes…and that pretty kid…you aren't trying to sneak in a lover, are—"

"Shhhh!" Komui hastily shushed the junior sorcerer. "Learn the word 'discreet', will you?"

Reever's reaction became even outraged. "You aren't denying it! Whoa, whoa! Since when did you turn to boys?"

"I am _not_ sneaking in a bed partner!" Komui whispered furiously, beginning to blush. "He's a new recruit! I—I discovered him last night, saw his large potential, and brought him in—"

"And exactly _how_ did you 'discover' him?" Said Reever, narrowing his eyes. "You do realize that you're blushing like a cherry, right?"

Komui groaned. "Fine. Man to man. This does not leave in-between us, alright? After the party, Marian Cross took me to the brothel that he owned sometime past midnight. And—I was pretty drunk, wasn't really sure what was going on, and next moment _he_ got pushed into my room—" He said with emphasis while twitching his head towards Allen, who stood idly away from them as they talked. "—and after that I guess I just passed out, because the next thing I knew I woke up and it was dawn. And the weird thing I noticed was that I felt _really, really _good when I woke up, which doesn't make sense since I drank like a pig last night. And the room was filled with magical traces it was suffocating me. Then I realized that it's one of those cases, you know—when two magically potent people become…intimate…their sorcerous energies become fused and flow to settle down the more chaotic of the two, which in last night's case, was me, because my control was pretty addled. That was the reason I felt completely revived while the kid was passed out. I looked into his internal energy to make sure, and my suspect was correct. He's magically potent, all right."

Reever had a lot to take in. "So…the kid's a prostitute."

"_Was_ a prostitute."

"Whatever. And you're saying that you brought him for legitimate reasons, not just to fuck him again at your own place."

"Yes! Heavens, believe in my integrity for once, will you?"

"Fine. But what I'm shocked about is the fact that…"

"That I discovered a new apprentice out of nowhere by pure luck? Amazing, right?"

"No, that you swing that way. _I never knew_."

Komui groaned again. "Forget it, you're hopeless. But I'm glad I met you here, because I needed someone to show the place around more to the kid. His name's Allen. I need to go report to the treasurer about the payment I made for Allen this morning. It cost a fortune to buy him out of the brothel."

"Like?"

"Two thousand eight hundred and twelve crowns."

Reever whistled. "Damn. He must've been the hotspot at the brothel."

"Yeah, he was. The best one they have, apparently."

"You would know." Reever sniggered. Before Komui could slap his shoulder in response, however, Reever added with a more serious tone. "But is he worth it? I mean, I'm not saying this just to piss you off, but you say you were really drunk, you just got laid, and since it was Viscount Dulmar's party, it's pretty likely you drank a lot more than just alcohol, know what I'm saying? You weren't the best judge of matters in the house. You should have called me over or something before you made the deal. Now we can't even back out. We can't exactly just return a prostitute."

"I am certain." Komui said with a firm voice. "His potential is extraordinary, and if I can train him as effectively as I trained you or Kanda, he could be really something in a few years."

Reever shrugged. "Alright. I'll know when I start testing him around a little. I'm expecting you were planning to make me in charge of the kid?"

"Yes. I'll be overseeing his progress, but I'll trust you to supervise the education of the boy as you did for other apprentices."

"And I am to suspect that he has never had been educated in sorcery, no?"

"That's right. He's never been trained, though he says sometimes he would be able to do small stuff with hand gestures and such. Like making little whirls of wind, causing a still puddle of water to splash a little, the basic stuff."

It was now Reever's turn to groan. "You _would_ enjoy pushing me into more trouble. If he didn't even realize what he was doing was sorcery, then we have a lot of work to do. How old is he? Fourteen? Fifteen? He's too old to be starting at the very beginning; he'll have a really hard time grasping his internal energy. You know that once a kid hits his eighth year or so his senses become very dull towards sorcerous powers."

"I believe in you enough to at least try your best." Komui gave him a hearty pat on the other mans' back. "Now, I've got to go and explain to the treasurer, so take care of Allen. Explain a bit about what's to happen then you can pass him on to Johnny for a tour of his quarters and other trivial matters, alright?"

"Right." Reever replied gruffly. "Just…whatever. Go along."

"Thanks." Komui grinned a satisfactory smile, then remembered something that caused his smile to falter. "And…the brothel story. I doubt Allen would be telling around that he's a former prostitute, so if I ever hear a rumor that I got on with Allen, I'll assume it's from you, understood?"

"Yes, sir." Reever dutifully replied, while in his head inventing numerous ways to blackmail his senior with the valuable information for his benefit.

"Good. Now I want you to report to my office this evening with anything you found out about Allen as well as an update from Daisya."

"Yes, sir."

Komui waved a bit to Allen in the distance then disappeared into the nearest building built of impressive white pillars and walls inscribed with old runes. Once he was gone, Reever turned towards Allen and gestured him to approach the man.

"Allen, huh?" said Reever, holding out a hand. "Name's Reever Wenhamm; call me Mr. Reever, Mr. Head Assistance Sorcerer Reever, Sir Reever, or just Reever, whatever. Just don't use my last name."

Allen nodded, shaking his hand, and Reever instantly liked the way he didn't ask why and just kept his thoughts to himself.

"I'm Allen Walker." He said in a quiet voice.

"That's an unusual name," The older man commented. Allen merely nodded again. "Well, my job is to supervise your education here. So let's walk while we talk, why don't we? I will have someone else actually showing you around the place later, so for now we'll just walk by the perimeter walls, alright?"

They began on a casual walk, keeping themselves close to the boundaries of the sorcerers' quarters, which was quite impressive in its vastness. Reever liked to walk while having a long talk with someone, since that way he was not in the awkward situation in which he wouldn't know where to place his eyes. Standing facing each other during a conversation caused him to meet the other's direct eyes much longer than he would normally prefer.

"So you obviously know that we are the imperial sorcerers under the Crown's direct protection and funding, dedicated to extensive academic research and the providing of utmost loyalty to the Crown, especially so at the time of peril when sorcerers are most direly needed. The order of the imperial sorcerers is called the Black Order. And there is another elite association under the Crown which is called the Royal Academy, which is an association of elite scholars and mages from all fields who have received the highest recognition in each of their areas of expertise. It consists of historians, alchemists, scientists and mages of various fields who devote themselves to the well-being of the Empire. It is an extreme honor as a sorcerer (or anyone of academic fields, I guess) to be accepted into the Royal Academy to work for the Crown. It is the proof of highest achievements and abilities, the title every honorable sorcerer strives to attain. As it is the case, the Royal Academy consists of the best of the Empire and likely of the continent as well, and all apprentices here undergo the most prestigious education one can ever hope to receive in the field of sorcery. Naturally, those apprentices have earned their education here by a demonstration of impressive potential and skill, as have you."

"Thank you." Allen said with a hint of shyness.

"Don't thank me yet. It is one thing to be born with potential, but another to be apt at it and to show the ability to progress. Also, to be able to withstand the vigorous training you will receive here. Education of sorcery is very expensive business, and any apprentice without remarkable improvements in skill will be eliminated from the program immediately. Yes, we expect _remarkable _progress from our apprentices. Less than three percent of apprentices who undergo this program ever earn the entrance into the Royal Academy. We don't give a damn shit about the rest who don't make it."

Reever paused and tapped his pursed lips with a frown. "Damn it, language! I always try to be classy in front of newcomers, but God knows I don't have it."

Allen let out a silent, tiny blow of air that could have been a start of a laugh, and then coughed hastily.

"Anyways," continued Reever, "you get the point. This shit is hard and brutal; failures are kicked out without a goodbye. As if it's not bad enough already, you are at a huge disadvantage here, Allen. Sorcerous blood runs strongly among aristocrats, and so their kids are generally tested for potential at very young ages and are considered for apprenticeship here at the palace. They start this when they're barely six. Even among the commoners, sorcerous power is rather easy to notice and those are recruited at very young ages, too. For some reason your potential had never been discovered before, unfortunately. And according to Komui, you're potent enough for him to drag you straight here, which just adds to my question of why you have never been exposed to real sorcery before. It didn't need to be a member of the Black Order necessarily. There are plenty of sorcerers out there, so why had no one noticed you before?"

"I—I don't know." Allen said uncertainly. "Sir Komui Lee said something similar as well. I told him that I could sometimes do tricks with hand motions, and he said it was strange that none of that energy was detected by anyone else so far."

"And another thing here, too—you knew you had something going on with yourself. Why didn't you ever ask anybody about what you could do?"

Allen's eyes faltered downwards. "I did, actually—once before. To master Cross a few years ago. But he told me it was cheap witchcraft and shouldn't do it—"

"Wait a second." Reever abruptly stopped walking and stared at Allen. "Cross? Marian Cross?"

"Yes…?"

"You tell stuff like that to Cross? Isn't he just your pimp?"

Allen blushed a little at the mention of his previous occupation. "He is my guardian…or at least was…since my father died when I was about ten."

Reever was aghast. "He's your fucking _guardian_? And he made you work at his brothel? Since when?"

Allen wasn't looking at the other man anymore when as mumbled: "Since I was twelve."

Reever slowly shook his head. "Damn. That bastard. And he told you it was witchcraft? He probably said it to keep you in your job, since you must have sold pretty well at his brothel."

Allen simply lowered his head, clearly wanting to escape this particular topic of the conversation. Reever took the hint and decided to give the kid a break.

"But anyways, that aside; let's continue back to your course of education here. You are expected to demonstrate beyond the average in every aspect of your education; I've repeated that enough. Besides me, you will be instructed by other sorcerers within the Academy along with other apprentices here who are also striving to enter the Academy. During your apprenticeship, you are placed under the protection and the funding of the Crown, and you are expected to behave yourself in the way appropriate for a branch member sponsored by the Empire. And not only that, you must understand that by pledging yourself under the Crown, you are declaring yourself the subject of loyalty to the Empire and the government, and that you may be used as deemed fit by the Empire whenever necessary."

"Excuse me," Allen interrupted cautiously, "but I don't quite understand when you say I 'may be used'; what do you mean?"

"It means that you belong to the Empire." Reever said in a more stern voice, as if to emphasize the gravity of his statement. "As to-be-sorcerers skilled enough to be taught by the Royal Academy, you and other apprentices are valuable assets to the Empire, whether that is regarding your academic value or even militaristic value. Whenever your skills and powers are needed by the Empire, you reserve no right to deny your loyalty to the Crown."

"Oh." Allen could only say, as the thought of being a property of the Empire was rather frightening.

"Do you still choose to pledge your allegiance and loyalty to the Crown?"

Allen seemed to have a moment of various flashing thoughts; Reever's sharp eyes could detect the nearly inscrutable changes in the young boy's face as it revealed momentary hesitation and fear. However, they were quickly replaced by an expression of determination that Reever decided he liked.

"Yes." Allen took a deep breath. "Yes, I do. I want to be something important, something that makes an impact in this world. I still can't believe my incredible fortune that Sir Komui discovered me and gave me this opportunity, and I won't let it go. If all the Empire wants is my life and loyalty in exchange for all—this—" here he vaguely gestured to the sorcerers' quarters around himself, "—undeserved chance to make something out of my life, then I will gladly give it anything it wants."

Reever looked at him for a moment, and said nothing. Then he gruffly messed up Allen's silvery hair with a grin. "I have a feeling I'm gonna like you, kid. That said and done, this is it for the introduction. Now, let me fill you in on the course you'll be on for the next few months."

* * *

><p>Ahh, this is kinda nervous! I actually had an old story that I began and scrapped some months later, simply because I thought it sucked. It felt like it was only a 0.4 or something, and now I'm going to combine what I had in that old story with new ideas and make it into a nice whole 1 :D<p>

Also, there is a new currency in this universe: a crown. It's worth about 50 US dollars.

There isn't much of M-rated materials in this story yet, but once Kanda starts coming in...his language alone will be enough.

Please review and I hope you enjoyed!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

When Allen woke with a start, he found himself sweating profusely in his sheets that had stuck to his skin. He frantically kicked the fabric away to free himself from the unpleasant bondage and lay panting on the mattress with his arm over his eyes.

Even as he controlled his breathing and willed himself to calm down, the details of his dream seeped away like water pooled in cupped hands. Dreams never held well. He didn't think it had necessarily been a nightmare; it had shocked him enough to wake him up, however. Random details such as a curtain and a dark cave flashed in his head before the relevancy between the images vanished quickly from his memory.

He moved his arm from his face. It was still very dark, yet when he turned his head towards his windows he saw a faint blue light peeking in between the velvet drapes. He guessed it was about an hour before dawn. He turned his head back to where it was and was about to force himself asleep again when something hit him.

The windows were on his right side. But they had been on his left for five years.

He abruptly sat up, and looked around, in shock, a strange room that was not his own through the faint light that was barely there.

Then the events of yesterday flooded his memory.

A tall, heavily drunken man of foreign ancestry had been his customer two nights ago. The man seemed to be in his mid or late twenties, and visited the brothel with several of his equally drunk friends. Judging from the quality of their dress, Allen could easily see their high status. He guessed they had returned from a party of sorts. He remembered being surprised that Cross had sent him to a drunken man. Cross usually never did that, for the fear of Allen, the most expensive prostitute in the brothel, being accidentally injured by drunken customers and hurting his business. The foreign man must have substantial influence for Cross to take the risk.

Fortunately, the man was not a type of man who became berserk when drunk; he was one of those who had calmer drinking habits. In fact, he wasn't even that bad.

But to Allen's alarm and confusion, Allen became quickly exhausted to his bones while on bed and near the end, he thought he might either throw up or black out. Luckily he didn't commit the catastrophe of vomiting on an aristocratic customer, but he passed out immediately as he felt the man break away from him.

The next thing he knew was that he was lying on that same bed with the man bending over him with a concerned expression. While his head rang with headache, he listened as the man explained that he was a sorcerer—a Senior Sorceror of the Imperial Black Order, in fact—and that he had forcibly woken Allen up with magic because of an urgent matter. Then the man said something about Allen having a sorcerous potential; he wanted to take Allen back to the palace to train him as a sorcerer of the Black Order.

Then, while Allen was still trying to recover from the strange exhaustion, headache and the torrent of strange new information, the man left to talk to master Cross. Allen soon found out that a transaction had occurred between the two men when the aristocrat-sorcerer man returned and told him to "pack up".

Everything had occurred so fast. His life had been completely turned upside-down in a matter of two days. It was still an effort to stop expecting his old room at the brothel to appear around him every time he blinked.

Yesterday, after Reever was done talking, he called up a younger man called Johnny to take him to his living quarters. Johnny was a quirky-looking man with insanely curly hair and thick spectacles, and he explained himself to be an assistant to Reever.

Only when Allen actually walked around a bit inside the sorcerer's quarters he realized just how vast its grounds were. Johnny explained that its grounds were the size of a small village, and that it was nearly as large as the palace ground itself. The sorcerer's ground was partially embedded into a side of the palace ground, and a thick forest covered the protruding boundaries of the sorcerer's grounds.

"If you really want the whole picture of how it looks like," Johnny had said, "then imagine a fat flower-shape that's a bit misshapen. The center is the actual palace ground, and the petals are occupied by the headquarters of other various sectors of the government. One is of course the Black Order, one other is the historians, scholars and the librarians, and another is the military—though obviously it's only occupied by knights and such, since there's no way the entire military force would be in there. One other is by the government officials who are privileged to reside in the imperial grounds. The other two—I'm actually not sure what they're for. I've seen the boundary walls from afar so I know they have the space for it, but it's likely they're not used for anything."

It had taken quite a lengthy walk just to reach Allen's living quarters. When they finally did, Allen saw that there was a cluster of small houses, a little out of the cobblestone road. There were about six of the smallest ones, two of the slightly larger size, and a single one that was quite sizeable. However, even the smallest one was more than enough for a single person. Johnny pointed to one of the small buildings for Allen. All the houses were built of the same white stone, but as all the houses were of different architecture, there was no difficulty in discerning his own from the others.

Allen instantly liked his new home. The white stone was simple but was extremely elegant, and the interior was supported by dark cherry wood beams. There was a bathroom, a tiny kitchen, a roomy bedroom with the best bed he had ever had, and even a basement that was his own dark but wide study. Allen especially loved that study, even the dust and occasional cobwebs that revealed that the house had not been occupied in a long time. One entire wall of the study was a vast bookshelf of rugged dark wood. Most of the shelves were empty, but half of it was filled with large drawers that required some effort to pry open due to the lack of use. Allen had opened a couple that day and had found very odd trinkets; one large glass marble that was infused with a vicious-looking praying mantis, a carved wooden flower and a broken blue ceramic piece. He figured that there were at least a hundred more drawers to open.

On the shelves he found about ten old books, one of which he saw was a dictionary in a foreign language he couldn't understand.

After he was done exploring his basement study, he asked Johnny for lamps to place in the study, as it was too dark. Upon this request Johnny simply laughed, to Allen's confusion.

"What was so funny about that?" Allen had asked, slightly annoyed.

"You'll see tomorrow." Johnny had only chuckled.

After that, Johnny quickly pointed out a large building in a distance which was the dining hall, and explained that someone will come fetch him the next morning for further explanations. Because Johnny had other matters to tend to, he left Allen in his own home to occupy himself for the rest of the day.

Then Allen spent the next few hours walking around his new home, gorged himself in the empty dining hall (it was past lunchtime) with delicacies he had never tasted before, and fell asleep in early afternoon and did not wake up until the following morning.

In present day, Allen fell back on his bed with a contented sigh. After a few moment of enjoying the comfort of his bed, he rose himself up and attempted to fix tea in the new kitchen. As he was draining his third cup of the heavenly liquid, he heard a loud knock on the door.

"Come in." Allen called, looking around for a thick tunic he had hung somewhere the day before.

It was a servant boy who had come to "fetch" Allen. The boy led Allen to an enormous building that turned out to be a library. After passing countless rows of sky-high bookshelves and display racks, he found various desks and tables in the corner of the building that was strewn in mayhem all over the place. Among the surfaces of all varying heights, the servant boy directed him towards a small figure that was seated between piles of books.

Allen saw that the figure was the strangest man he had ever seen in his life. The man was very old, albeit with a surprisingly voluptuous ponytail, and had dark circles around his eyes as if he had not slept for years. He seemed very occupied with a particular tome over which he was hovering a magnifying glass.

Allen promptly approached the man, and cautiously called out.

"Um…hello?"

"Sit down, and give me a second." the old man immediately snapped. Intimidated, Allen hastily sat down on the nearest chair.

A few uncomfortable minutes passed as the old man continued with his reading. Finally, as Allen was beginning to consider calling out again, the old man suddenly looked up at him.

"I am the Bookman. You will refer to me as the Bookman, and call me as the Bookman."

Allen nodded, scared to ask him why.

The old man continued. "I heard about you from Komui Lee. He didn't' tell me where on earth he found you from, but I couldn't care less. I'm saying this to tell you that whatever secret you have, Komui hasn't said it. What's more important to me is whether you've got brains or not. So boy, have you been formally educated?"

Allen hesitated. "I—I know how to read and write. Is that what you mean?"

The Bookman snorted. "Hmm. Not what I meant, but if you can read and write already, you're better off than the most. Do you know any arithmetic?"

"Oh, I forgot to say. I do, just a little. I've watched my—uh, people calculating things for a time."

The Bookman nodded thoughtfully. "Do you know any foreign languages?"

Allen shook his head, and the old man just shrugged.

"No matter, you'll learn. If you can stay here long enough, that is."

After that ominous statement, the Bookman made Allen conduct a few odd tests regarding his memory and intellect. He made Allen memorize a long list of random objects in a very short time and recite back as many as he could; he showed Allen a complex diagram for the boy to perfectly copy on a piece of paper; he also made Allen pronounce some foreign words of difficult pronunciation.

At the last test, Allen couldn't hold his curiosity anymore.

"What does this test do? I understand the first ones were to test my memory, but I don't quite understand this one."

"Those words are from the language in which sorcery is built upon." the old man replied. "If you have a stiff tongue and have difficulty pronouncing these, you'd have a hard time performing sorcery. That's why I'm checking."

Then they went back to correcting his pronunciation for a hundred more words.

By the time Allen felt as if his tongue wiggling out of his control, their testing session was interrupted by a new stranger.

Allen didn't even know he was there until a loud voice called out, "Hey, panda man!"

When he looked around, he found a tall boy with flaming red hair with an eye patch over his right eye. Allen figured that he was a few years older than himself.

The Bookman only grunted his irritation when the red-haired boy approached them. Allen just stared at the boy, waiting for another "who are you" he had received some umpteen times so far. To his surprise, the boy abruptly took his hand and shook it energetically, announcing "I'm Lavi. You're Allen, aren't ya? The new recruit!"

"H—hi." Allen could only say, somewhat startled.

The boy named Lavi seemed to read his mind. "The whole Order knows that we have a new recruit at this point. It's a pretty big deal whenever there's a new apprentice, since the Order is never big to begin with."

Before Allen could respond, Lavi had already turned to face the Bookman.

"Eh, gramps, you're already up to torturing the poor kid! I bet you called him here at dawn. God, look at the time! Have you even fed him?"

The Bookman shocked Allen by actually flinching guiltily. "No, I had…forgotten."

"That's what I thought. Come on, Allen, let me get you out of the panda's grasp!"

_Panda?_ Allen thought confusedly. _What on earth is a panda? _But he didn't have time to ask him about it when Lavi grabbed his wrist and began to drag him away from the old man.

The Bookman gathered his composure and bellowed at Lavi. "I am_ not_ done with him yet!"

Lavi merely waved a hand at him as he pulled poor Allen along, who was highly flabbergasted.

"Eh, you've got loads of time. See ya!"

"_LAVI!"_

Ignoring the Bookman, Lavi successfully pulled Allen out of the library into the bright sunlight. It was already late morning. The older boy finally let go of Allen, who was still looking back uncertainly at the library.

"Is it okay to just leave him like that?" Allen asked.

"Nah, it's fine. You've got to eat, kid. I mean, it's already ten and you're at your growth spurt age, aren't you? It's a lot healthier to leave the panda in the library and meet some real people at the dining hall."

"Er, what's a panda?" Allen asked as they began walking towards the dining hall.

"Oh, I guess they don't' live in the Empire…a panda is an animal that lives across the ocean in the south. It looks like a bear, but they have huge black circles around their eyes against a white background. So gramps is a panda." Lavi chuckled. "And yeah, he's my grandpa."

"You don't…look alike. _At all._" Allen observed.

Lavi laughed. "I get that a lot. Good thing that somehow there were some better-looking genes surviving inside the panda to be passed down right?"

"Ha ha." Allen smiled uncertainly. He was unfamiliar with being around people who were as outgoing as Lavi. He decided it was time for him to take the initiative and warm up to the strange boy as well. "Um, so what do you do here? Are you a sorcerer too?"

"_Hell_ no. I would kill myself if I had to be one. No offense, though." Lavi added with a mischievous wink at Allen, who looked suddenly alarmed. "Eh, I'm just kidding. Sorcerer's aren't bad. It's just not my things, that's all."

"Then what are you?"

"I'm a spirit wielder."

Allen's eye widened. "A spirit wielder…then you can control—"

"—the natural spirits and their respective elements, yeah." Lavi flicked his hair back with a jokingly haughty manner. "It's pretty cool."

"Which element do you control?" Allen asked eagerly. Sorcery he may know nothing about, but he was better acquainted with the art of spirit-wielding. After all, Mana had been one, though not a very skilled one.

"I'm best with fire-spirits. Since that means water is out of question for me, I'm going to work on wind-spirits next."

"Fire? How high a level of spirits can you summon?"

Lavi looked at the younger boy with a surprised expression. "You know some stuff about spirits, don't you? Well, the best I can do is an intermediate-level fire spirit. But for the lower spirits, I can summon up to…let's see…eleven at a time."

"That's a lot." Allen said, in awe. "I knew someone who was also a spirit-wielder, and he never got more than eight. You're really young, too."

"Eh, I've been doing this for a while." Lavi shrugged. "Once you have the knack for it, it's really only a matter of practice. It's different from sorcery in that aspect. Sorcery is—" Here he gave a horrified shudder. "Way too much studying and too many abstract theories that I don't understand."

"Ah." Said Allen, feeling more and more unconfident by the second. It seemed that sorcery would require a lot of brainpower—something that Allen wasn't sure he had enough.

They had arrived at the dining hall Allen had visited yesterday. This time, late breakfast was still on the way and it was now crowded with strangers carrying heaving plates of food. It was very loud, and while heading to the corner were the breakfast buffet was set, Allen spotted Reever across the hall. He was carrying an enormous porcelain jug out of the dining hall with the help of another man.

"What…is that?" Allen asked Lavi, bemused. When he saw the scene, Lavi sniggered.

"It's coffee for the Senior Sorcerer Komui Lee, I'm positive. That's his daily dose."

"That much?" The jug could have carried gallons.

"Yup."

At that point, Reever slipped and nearly dropped the giant jug. Upon regaining his balance, Reever mouthed a swear that Allen couldn't hear and motioned to the other man to carefully set the jug down on the ground. Then Reever made some complex gestures with his hands, and to Allen's surprise the jug rose into the air smoothly. He pointed to the door of the dining hall, and the jug obediently floated towards it, with Reever walking triumphantly alongside it. Many spectators who had also been watching the scene clapped after Reever.

"Whoa…." Allen watched with amazed eyes as the coffee jug even proceeded to prop the door open for Reever as they went out.

"Never seen sorcery before?" Lavi asked, and Allen shook his head.

"Only the accidental ones I've done myself before I got here. Never these proper ones."

"Well, they'll get you started real soon on your studies. Probably today, since the panda is already going about you."

They were now filling their plates from the breakfast buffet with steaming foods. Allen wondered how the chef could have come up with so many combinations of the limited breakfast ingredients of eggs, sausages, tomatoes, bacon, pancakes and bread.

When his large plate was heaped on with food, Allen turned to get to a table. "Hopefully. I can't wait. I mean, I don't think I can seriously accept that all this is real unless I see myself doing—"

Then as he turned, he crashed headfirst into a man who had been standing right behind him. Allen looked at horror at the man's clothes as it was bathed in the contents which previously had been of his breakfast plate. A particularly large chunk of eggs and fat sausages fell by the man's shoes with a loud splat.

Allen realized instantly how silent the dining hall had become. It felt as if the entire hall's eyes were directed at him. He couldn't be sure, however, because he himself was too busy looking at the face of the man whom deserved a very heartfelt apology.

A face that, Allen realized, was extremely angry and distinctly reminded him of the devil.

"Oh, it's very real alright." Lavi replied behind him, then added: "Oi, Yuu! When d'you come back?"

* * *

><p>oh, the fun. I realized how hard these chapters are to write.<p>

To prevent potential confusion, I'll add this: the world layout of the story will reveal itself as it goes on. I'm not the type to introduce everything before I start the story; I enjoy telling it little by little :D

The only thing that really needs to be told is that this story is set in AU. but that was probably obvious anyway ;p

please review and thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

* * *

><p>It had actually been a relatively tolerable day for Kanda so far. He had had to wake himself up at three in the morning in the distant countryside village of Gouna in order to reach the Empire's capital by that same morning, but he was used to travelling at odd hours. Gouna had been more than three hundred miles away, a distance normally impossible to cover in five hours, forcing excessive use of sorcerous transportation on his part. He had only recently learnt the skill, so he was exhausted from the numerous short-distance transportations he had performed on his way. He was in need of a comfortable bed very fast. But he was fine with exhaustion; it was a known observation that sorcery goes hand in hand with lack of sleep, migraines, and slight stress-induced insanity (as demonstrated by Komui Lee). He was used to this stuff. He was even fine with it. Even when he was denied retreating to his bed and was ordered to immediately report to Reever , followed by a long discussion—or, rather an argument resembling a fight between two growling dogs—poring over a continental map with that annoying man, he had convinced himself that, you see, people can have lot worse days than this.<p>

So when a strange old man with white hair shoved up a steaming breakfast tray up his torso, he tried again telling himself that he could perhaps keep on going with this unusual optimism he rarely experienced and try to show this new, clumsy, stupid, imbecile, fucking son-of-a-bitch some understanding?

Then Lavi spoke.

He considered for a quarter of a second, and then he said, screw you.

And he threw the white-haired man full-swing punch in the face.

One moment, Allen was feeling scared upon witnessing one of the most frightening expressions he had ever seen on the man's face he had just dumped his breakfast on. Then next second, he was on the floor with blinding pain on his left cheek and his world was spinning with stars. He was so shocked that he couldn't even cry out. Distantly he heard Lavi shouting, followed by a heavy body falling on top of him with a loud "Oof". Allen realized that he had just been flattened again by Lavi, who had collapsed due to another punch delivered by the strange man with long black ponytail. He struggled to crawl out under Lavi and stood up to face his assailant.

Usually, Allen considered himself a mild person. He didn't like to confront people upright and sought to circumvent hairy encounters as much as possible. Because of that nature, most people remembered him as a meek, soft-spoken, nice boy with no key features to remember about, and Allen liked to keep things that way. But oh no, this was too much. No one in _HELL_ was going to be given his usual little smile when he had just knocked him to the ground with a humiliating blow to the _face_. He was _not_ that nice.

So he consecutively committed two things that he almost never did: he swore and punched.

"That was _uncalled for, bastard!_"

For a person who never, ever swore out loud (yes, for him, it was a swearword), Allen personally thought that the line was nicely delivered with the accents in the right places. Unfortunately, the punch to the face that followed was promptly blocked by the larger hand of the black-haired man. Then the man proceeded to severely twist that arm in his grasp backwards until Allen cried out in pain.

For Kanda's part, he was surprised to realize that the old man, in fact, was a boy even younger than himself just with white hair. The speculation brought slight relief, since even _he_ wasn't too keen on punching old men so old that all their hair was pure white. He was now planning to pummel the kid, who had even dared to throw a fist back at his face.

But just as he was shoving his knee up the boy's abdomen, the retarded red-head threw himself on top of Kanda.

"Kanda, NO! I keep telling you, it was a mistake! You're gonna kill him!"

Indeed, the white-haired brat was now on the floor, spluttering from the blow to his guts and looking half-passed out.

"And I'm going to finish the job." Kanda growled, roughly trying to push Lavi off. However, as the two of them were at par in terms of pure strength, Lavi managed to cling on.

"Mistake, I say! _MISTAKE_!" Lavi kept wailing, until Kanda, with a brutal shove, finally shook him off. As soon as he was detached from Kanda, Lavi took a defensive stance in front of Allen, who was still recovering. Kanda growled some more. Seeing that Lavi would continue to be a nuisance to him, he simply spat out a loud "che" and turned away. The crowd around the scene parted obediently as Kanda exited the place.

Lavi hurriedly turned to Allen as soon as Kanda was safely gone.

"Allen! Allen! You awake?"

Allen managed to prop himself up on his elbows with Lavi's help.

"Yeah…wait—where did—uh…wha—?" He said, completely dazed. Lavi put an arm underneath Allen's armpit and pulled him up.

"Yuu's gone, don't worry. Here, let me get you checked up."

"Oh—thanks. But I'm fine, really…" Allen said weakly.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, no need for a check-up or anything."

While Lavi shooed off the watching crowd, Allen recollected his thoughts. He was just beaten up by a man he had never seen before. He had that face of foreign ancestry similar to that of Senior Sorcerer Komui…yet a contrasting personality.

"Who was that jerk?" Allen asked, stumbling as he pulled himself to his feet. Lavi hurriedly held onto Allen's elbow to help him keep his balance.

"Kanda. Kanda Yuu. But you don't ever call him 'Yuu' if you want to keep your head, unless you're me, of course."

"Is he always that much of…?"

"An asshole? Yup."

"Why? What's up with him?"

"I dunno. He's just pissed off at everything and apparently a lot of things get stuck up his ass. But honestly," Lavi gave Allen a wide-eyed look. "That was weird. You dump steaming eggs all over him and attempt to punch him in the face, and all he did was to just knee you in the guts."

"He also almost dislocated my jaw." Allen added dryly.

"Well, yeah, but he's known to collapse ribcages." Lavi shrugged. "As well as breaking knees."

Allen gave an involuntary shiver.

"Anyways, that's that. Since your breakfast is being carried away by Kanda's jacket, you should get yourself another plate and finish your meal. Just don't mind Kanda too much…He's like that to everybody."

The younger boy gave an incredulous look. "And people just…get along with it?"

Lavi shrugged again. "What are they gonna do? He's the best sorcerer his age possibly in the entire empire. He's a lot more valuable than most people in this place. It's hard enough keeping him here training in sorcery, because…" Here Lavi lowered his voice. "He never even wanted to be a sorcerer. Kanda is the nephew of Baron Froi Tiedoll, the house that produces the best knights and warriors of this country. No doubt Kanda was raised striving the same thing. But then one day he comes visiting the palace with his uncle and bam—all the sorcerers in the palace grounds freak out and run to the senior sorcerer of that time that something huge has just entered the vicinity and is messing with all the energy in the place. So they—" here he chuckled a bit— "let loose some of the sorcerers into the palace to sniff around a bit and they found Kanda as the one radiating a ridiculous amount of raw sorcerous energy. Then they announced they were taking him in."

"Just like that?"

"Well, they _announced_ it just like that, but Kanda didn't _just_ go. He was…lemme see…only around eleven or something, but he had the same temper. I heard he threatened the Baron that he would personally assassinate him if he sent him to the sorcerers. But then the Chief Supervisor of the sorcerers, who is a duke by the way, had a talk with Kanda and a day later, Kanda was living here."

"What did the duke say to him to change his mind?"

"I don't really know. It was a private talk. Might have yelled at him for a bit, who knows. But the important thing is that Kanda was way too dangerous to himself and the others to have all that energy uncontained. Sorcerous energy only grows stronger and more chaotic as you get older, and he needed to have that tamed fast. By the way, really, we should get breakfast again instead of just standing around and talking here." Lavi grinned.

Allen nodded glumly and approached the breakfast buffet once more. When he filled his second plate of food, he and the other boy sat down on a nearby table.

As he began to eat, he found his previous anger and annoyance at the jerkface slowly melting away. He had always been treated to good food at Cross's place, but this…this was beyond just _good_.

"Like the food here?" Lavi asked smiling, who had seen Allen's expression.

"Yeah…" he looked down at his eggs with a surprised look. "I thought last night's dinner couldn't get any better, but who knew plain scrambled eggs can taste like this?"

"Jerry's great like that."

"Is that the chef?"

"Yup."

They ate vigorously in silence for the next few moments. Even after Lavi finished, Allen had to get two more plates of the same food. As he nearly reached an end, he noticed Lavi staring.

"Is everything okay?" he asked.

"Eh, do you always eat that much?" Lavi swallowed.

Allen nodded, hesitantly.

"And you manage to stay that thin? Whoa, I know so many girls who would murder to have that kind of metabolism."

"I've always eaten a lot, but I never got bigger or grew too much…I guess the food just goes through me."

"So…you have to eat more than normal to keep yourself from malnutrition?"

"Something like that."

Lavi continued his half-fascinated stare as Allen finished. As he had his last mouthful in, Lavi blurted out as if he just had a revelation:

"You know, not just slim and small, you're hella pretty, too."

A loud splutter erupted from Allen's mouth as he involuntarily half-spat and half-swallowed his food at the same time and subsequently choked. Lavi, alarmed, sprang up and ran around the table to pat his back. He meant well, but it only made him choke harder and Allen had to blindly swap his hand away to make him stop. Didn't he know that patting one's back while choking or throwing up was a misconception?

Nope, not only didn't Lavi know that, he also misunderstood Allen's hand motions.

"Pat higher up? You got it!"

When he finally stopped coughing, Lavi handed him a cup of water. He didn't look too worried anymore. Instead, he had a mischievously amused look on his face.

"I didn't know that calling you pretty would freak you out so much. Has no one ever said that to you?"

_Way too many times, actually._ Allen thought. "I didn't freak out! That was just…unexpected."

"If that wasn't freaking out, I hadn't seen a real one yet."

"That's right, you haven't. The food just went down the wrong pipe, that's all." Allen protested, wiping his mouth.

"Right." The older boy grinned. "But seriously, how were you ever going to get a job with this kind of girly face? Lucky you were picked into this place."

"Har har. Funny. But I already had a job, so don't worry." He replied, and instantly regretted it. He could see what Lavi's next words were going to be.

"Oh, really? What did you do?"

"Er, I worked at an inn."

A very special inn that provided special services and cost many ounces of gold a night, but an inn nonetheless. He technically wasn't lying.

"And?"

"I just did chores. Washing dishes mostly, because I was the youngest." Allen shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.

Fortunately, Lavi accepted his reply and soon lost interest in the subject. Allen sighed inwardly and stood up with the other boy to leave the dining hall.

Lavi had left for some other business, and Allen was back at the Bookman's section of the vast library. The Bookman glared momentarily at Allen upon seeing his return then sighed.

"That boy meddles too much for his own good." He said, shaking his head. "I hope you didn't mind my grandson."

"No, not that all. In fact, he was really nice…"

The old man made a doubtful "hmph" and motioned Allen to approach his table. When the boy sat down across him, the Bookman began.

"While you were off, I finished analyzing your test results."

Allen shifted in his seat nervously.

"I've tested new recruits for the past thirty-odd years, and I can say that you come out as one of those in the top percentile. However," he lifted a finger in a stern manner. "I've noticed a severe flaw during the time you were writing and drawing. Give me your hand. Any hand."

Puzzled, Allen handed him his right hand. The Bookman took it with his own rough hands, and abruptly began bending the boys fingers backwards, none too gently. Allen winced and instinctively flinched his hand, but the Bookman held on.

"Your hands—" He continued as he bent Allen's fingers in all manner of directions. "—are highly inflexible. A lot more than what is typical. The movements of the joints are not very fluid and they don't bend far. And this is fatal for a sorcerer, because sorcery is an art of symbolic gestures and when a pentacle is not drawn, your hands will be used instead to represent the necessary symbols. And a hand gesture is usually a lot more convenient than having to take out a pen and paper and draw a perfectly circular pentacle. Now, can you do this with your hand? Right or left?"

The Bookman held out a flat hand, palm-up, and bent his fourth finger inward so that only the second joint was bent and the first two digits of the finger were parallel to the palm. Then he bent the thumb inward, keeping it straight, so that it was perfectly perpendicular to the length of the fourth finger. The fourth fingernail touched the joint of the thumb lightly. All this was done while keeping the rest of the fingers and the palm flat and straight.

Allen attempted the same gesture with his right hand, since he was right-handed. But when he bent his fourth finger, the rest of the fingers bent a bit along with it, and he couldn't get it parallel to the palm. His thumb was definitely _not_ perpendicular…some kind of a large obtuse angle that caused his joints to unwillingly bend. After a while his fingers began to hurt too much and he couldn't get his palm flat anymore. He looked at the Bookman with an exasperated face.

The Bookman had a worried expression on. "This is one of the gestures that form the basis of the symbols. If you are unable to form these shapes, then…we are going to have trouble."

Allen's heart fell. He wasn't going to be able to do sorcery because of his stupid fingers? But it had barely been two days since he came here—he didn't want to have to leave. He needed to get this.

"Is there—" He licked his suddenly dry lips. "Is there any way to help this?"

"Only for you to keep try and get your hands more pliable. Both hands. I wish there was a way sorcery could help, but sorcery doesn't work on organisms so complex like humans. Stretch and flex your hands daily. That's the only way."

Allen nodded glumly.

"But hand motions are only a part of sorcery that makes it more applicable. You can focus on the other components of your study until you try to have your fingers more flexible. After all, at your level, hand gestures wouldn't even matter."

As the Bookman moved onto explaining his course of education for the following months, Allen couldn't help but to flex his fingers under the table, trying to bend them further than they could. Stiff fingers were the last thing he had expected to get in the way of his life. Luckily the Bookman didn't seem to think that the problem was unfixable. Allen tried to assure himself the same way, too. After all, Allen had trained himself more flexible for the last few years in other parts of his body, and it had worked. So it should work the same, except that Allen needed to have it done as fast as he could—

"Are you listening to me?"

The Bookman's raspy, slightly irritated voice cut through the boy's running thoughts.

"Oh, I…sorry."

"Kids nowadays." the man scoffed. "I was saying that there are around thirty 'apprentices' in the Black Order at the current time. Two of them are not sorcerers or mages, but spirit-wielders. My immature grandson you just saw is one of them. Most of these apprentices are at different stages of experience and education and several of the students nearing the acceptance into the Black Order are already carrying out the duties of an official imperial sorcerer. Daisya Barry, Kanda Yuu, and Miranda Lotto are those. Remember their names, boy. The Black Order is no exception from being swept into a pool of political games, and it doesn't hurt to have powerful friends in the early stages."

Allen grimaced unnoticeably at hearing the jerkface's name, but something else caught his attention.

"Excuse me, but what are…mages?"

"A subgroup of sorcerers. While sorcery involves the manipulation of natural kinetic energies, _magic_, as you call it, can also inject 'will' into the surroundings or objects and perform different kind of manipulation. It's generally much weaker and subtler than sorcery, but can be generated over a longer period of time."

"I don't quite understand…" Allen said uncertainly. "Mages inject…'will'? As in the mages' own will? Or so that the objects have minds of their own?"

"Both. Depends on what the mage wants. But it doesn't mean that all mages do is trying to get teacups to talk or anything like that. Though I guess I've seen that happen as a joke. But the point is, magic is something that has no simple definition. The general belief is that magic is the subgroup of sorcery, but I personally believe that it's a lot more probable that modern sorcery originated from ancient magic. Ancient artifacts reek of traces of magic, not sorcery. Magic has a lot more sinister, darker undertone and the majority of the things that occur with magic can't be explained. It's more raw and unfiltered."

The Bookman leaned a bit on the table and put a lazy elbow onto it. His voice tone was lowered as if their topic deserved a more serious connotation.

"For example, about a thousand something miles up north from here is the northern borderline of the Empire. And over the section of the borderline about eighty miles long, lies a very, very old forest that has always been there, as far as any civilization that had lived on this continent knows. It is a famous story that the forest denies anyone from entering the forest. An adventurer once foolishly declared he could meet the forest's challenge, and marched in. When he didn't appear for a whole day, his friends sought the help of several sorcerers to teleport him back out. After hours of attempt he returned with short bloody stubs where his legs have been and was missing a hand, along with various holes in his stomach. He claimed in his fever that no creature lived in the forest at all. He had ventured in straight, and when he looked back, he saw that the direction he had come in had somehow filled in with a multitude of more trees. And everywhere he went, the path he had just taken was blocked by more and more trees that at one point he was trapped, unable to pass between trunks standing so close together. Then, the adventurer said, that the trees then attacked him."

"Attack…?" Allen muttered, unable to suppress a shudder.

The Bookman merely raised an eyebrow. "He couldn't exactly elaborate on what he meant, but all his wounds were made in a circular fashion, not knife wounds. Such as a large hole on his abdomen as if a thick branch had gone straight through. He died the next day.

"Such is what magic can do. There is no sorcery known to man that allows such a large body of mass to possess independent will free of an exterior intervention and allow it to build a complex system that adapts and grows on its own. But sadly, or perhaps I should say, fortunately," The Bookman added, seeing Allen's pale expression, "this kind of magic cannot be performed at the modern time. Now magic is weak and not sought greatly after like sorcery. In rural, undeveloped areas of the continent, magic is considered sinister voodoo and nothing more. Right now is the age of perfected theories and educated hypotheses: sorcery."

"But then those mages at the Black Order—"

"They are educated in sorcery as well. It is just that they study magic alongside standard sorcery. There's not much you can do with magic nowadays."

Allen nodded. Sorcery wasn't a familiar field to the general public, let alone the most obscure fields of spirit-wielding and magic. He still couldn't grasp what magic exactly was, but he guessed that it was those kinds of things that couldn't be described explicitly.

"Now, before we were sided into talking about mages, where were we? Oh, yes—"

The Bookman explained that Allen's education would consist of foreign language, ancient runes, mathematics, and of course, active sorcery. The Bookman himself would teach the ancient runes and mathematics. Though, depending on his judgment, he might replace some days with education on other lessons that may help Allen's entry into the "educated world", such as history and modern politics. There would be different teachers for each of the foreign languages he was expected to learn. Which, to Allen's horror, were three.

"Mastery of several foreign languages is expected for any imperial scholar! Of which, as an apprentice of sorcery, you are one!" The Bookman snapped at seeing the terrified expression on Allen.

Sorcery itself was to be taught by Head Assistant Reever. Allen would have to wait for Reever in the Eastern courtyard at two. He had already been at the courtyard yesterday, so there was no problem finding it. All his other lessons would take place before noon, and late at night.

"Do you want me to write it down?" The old man asked at this point, and Allen nodded gratefully.

The schedule written down on a piece of thick paper with a spidery handwriting of the Bookman looked like this:

_7 a.m.—Ancient Runes and mathematics_

_10 a.m.—Foreign languages_

_Around 1 p.m.—break and lunch_

_2 p.m.—Sorcery_

_10 p.m.—Sorcery_

The Bookman cleared his throat while Allen was looking scared again for the multiple times this morning. "Don't look too worried. What Reever does is never exactly scheduled, but he most likely will not keep you past six. And the night-lesson is usually for collaboration with other apprentices, and you'll be back to bed by midnight. And I don't give extra work outside of lessons, though what the other teachers may do is outside my concern."

The Bookman glanced at Allen and saw that the young boy still had a nervous look in his eyes, and sighed. "If it makes you feel better, the night session will have Lavi join in, too. You'll have at least one familiar face."

To Allen's relief, the Bookman told him that his sessions with the old man would not begin until tomorrow, seeing how it was already late. He told him to return to the library tomorrow morning before shooing the boy out of _his_ corner of the library.

The large clock tower built on the top of the library's roof told Allen that the time was past eleven. He had about two and a half hours until his meeting with Reever, but as he couldn't think of anything to do till then, he decided to go to the courtyard early. He might see some people there. As vast as the grounds that the Black Order occupied was, it was difficult to notice a single person present in the vicinity. Even as he walked the wide, cobblestone grounds, he only distinguished a couple white-clad servants in the distance.

Which brought him back to the matter of his own clothes. He consciously looked down at what he was wearing: a grey woolen tunic that resembled a large sweater than a real tunic. Underneath that he had loose brown pants and the single pair of shoes—a soft moccasin-like boots—he had. He had brought a small bag of clothes consisting of a couple of large tunics, two pairs of pants and a shirt. He never had the need to own more clothing than that, for what he wore every night was provided by the brothel. When he was at the brothel he scarcely wore anything but white, silk blouses and tight-fitting leggings. These were what he wore whenever he should venture outside.

But he remembered what Lavi had been wearing. A crisp, long black tunic and a cream-colored shirt underneath, and a red sash wound around his waist. Black fitted pants and shiny leather boots. Now that he remembered, even Kanda had been wearing a dark vest with something that looked like gold buttons. Which looked very expensive. On which he had dumped his breakfast on.

He looked at his own clothing again. Lavi had said that the jerkface was the nephew of a baron, so that explained his attire. But was Lavi rich, too? Reever had said that sorcerous blood was more common in nobility than among commoners. Then were all the apprentices here of aristocratic heritage?

Feeling a bit crestfallen, he continued his way to the courtyard. He wasn't the one to care much about clothes and money and such, but even he wasn't too keen on being the poorest person in the entire place and having his lack of decent clothes announce the fact to everyone.

He was abruptly stopped by a tall, white marble wall and realized that he was already at the entrance into the eastern courtyard. Pushing open the wrought-metal gates, he walked into a spacious grass field specked with occasional stone tiles and cobblestone. Parts of the yard were already occupied by several tall men who were sparring with long wooden sticks. Allen found it a bit odd that sorcerers were sparring with movements that were typical of sword fighting, but he presumed that sorcerers needed exercise, too.

The courtyard was lined with the marble wall all around it. Allen saw that the wall allowed two additional entrances beside the one he had just come through. There also were smaller wooden doors, which were mostly already opened, that lead into large rooms. Walking along the wall, he decided to venture into one of those chambers.

To his disappointment, the one that was closest to him was nearly empty save for a couple of long benches and shelves. He came out and went to see the next room, which had lot more stuff inside. Beside the benches, a long array of large cabinets lined an entire wall. And each of them—they didn't have any doors for the cabinet—had hooks that held cloaks and robes and other clothing. Some of them had large bags on the bottom with thick tomes messily spilling out of them. All of them contained a pair of shoes, more or less strewn all over the place. Furthermore, the room smelled like sweat. Allen realized he had come into a changing room for those who were sparring outside.

"Hello?"

Allen, surprised, whipped around to face the door. A sweaty face of a young man with spiky brown hair was staring at him. He had striking blue tattoos underneath each eye that stretched down to his cheek. He was lightly panting as well.

"Oh, hello." Allen muttered. "I was just…wondering what this room was for…"

"Hey…" The young man squinted his eyes. "White hair…you're that new apprentice."

Allen nodded timidly, worried if he wasn't supposed to come into this room.

"What was your name again?"

"Allen. Allen Walker."

"Cool. I'm Daisya Barry." The young man walked up to him and offered a hand. Allen shook it. "Have you met some people yet? Cause if you haven't, bunch of us are out there. The thing about this place is that it's so wide that it's hard to spot other people without appointment. Especially since most lessons are private. This courtyard is one of those few places where you can actually expect people to gather, besides the dining hall."

Before Allen could even answer Daisya grabbed a linen towel from a basket, turned back, and motioned for the younger boy to follow him. They walked straight through the grass towards a small gathering of people with wooden sticks. They seemed to be taking a break at the present moment and most of them had their shirts off with just pants on, sitting on the ground.

Allen swallowed. They all seemed older than he was. Including Daisya, they looked to be at least eighteen and older.

And when they were close enough that Daisya was waving at the group, Allen noticed a familiar face among those who were standing. A face that was surrounded by long black hair tightened into a high ponytail. His eyes widened, and for a split second he wondered if he should just run, until Daisya gave him a pat on the back to usher him in closer.

The other man had also seen Allen, and a most contemptuous expression the young boy had ever seen filled the otherwise-handsome face of the man.

Kanda.

Allen tore his terrified gaze away from the man, who was still sending an icy glare at him, and tried to smile at Daisya and the others as Daisya introduced him to the group.

"This is Allen, the newest recruit into the Black Order. We are all still apprentices here except for Arystar Krory _the Third_ here." Daisya gestured to a very tall man with strange black-and-white hair, rolling his eyes at the additional title. Man called Arystar jokingly punched Daisya in the shoulders.

"Just call me Krory. That's the shortest way to call me."

"Yeah, other than 'vamp'." Daisya sniggered, and received another punch. Indeed, the man did resemble the mythical creature with his pasty complexion and canines that were sharper and longer than average.

Daisya moved on.

"This is Vhido."

"Hello." Said a blond muscular boy not too older than Allen.

"This is Kanda."

Allen quickly looked away as Kanda's eyes seemed to shoot daggers at him.

"Chaozii."

A stocky, foreign man with unkempt black hair waved a hand. "Do you spar?" He asked Allen, who shook his head.

"Che, figures. Look at him, wind could blow him away."

It look a short moment for Allen to realize that the low, bass voice had come from Kanda. He now had his bare arms crossed and his chin raised haughtily.

"…!" Allen was about to say something similar back, when he actually noticed Kanda's physique. He also had taken his shirt off under the noon sun, and lean but muscular torso was revealed under his well-built arms. So he could only back down biting his tongue.

"Geez, Kanda, stop being an ass." Said the blond boy called Vhido.

"Don't mind him, he's always like that." Daisya said.

"I know." Allen muttered silently.

Kanda scoffed. "Not only he's short, even his dick's too small for him to have the balls to retort back on his own."

That did it.

"Well, someone had to make you feel better about being so ugly."

There was silence in the field as the group absorbed what Allen had just said. Then Chaozii and Daisya simultaneously made strange choking sounds in their throats and began to laugh. The rest of them followed, except for Kanda, who began to show a slight tint of angry blue.

"Oh, _MAN!_" Daisya gasped, holding on to his stomach. "I've never, _ever_ heard someone call him ugly—_in his face!_ Ha!"

Unfortunately, Allen himself didn't have much time to gloat, because very soon afterwards he was being lifted by hands that grasped the neckline of his tunic. He also heard Kanda snarl.

"You—damned—fucking—little—"

Krory came to Allen's rescue hurriedly. He had an expression somewhere between laughing and trying to seem stern, which resulted in looking as if he was about to cry.

"No, Kanda, no! Hold your temper! You don't want to choke him! That's homicide!"

Indeed, Allen was having difficulty breathing as he was lifted higher in the air.

"No, this is suicide. This punk decided he didn't want to live anymore the moment he opened his trap."

"Assisted suicide is still a crime!" Krory cried.

"Shut the hell up, vamp."

Allen desperately clawed at the hands that were holding him up, but they were like iron. So instead Allen resorted to a less dignified, yet effective, harsh kick to Kanda's crotch.

The boy fell to the ground immediately. He landed on his rear, and he cried out in pain when he just happened to fall on stone tiles that freckled the grass field. But he realized that his pain was nothing compared to what Kanda must be feeling. The man's face had gone white as sheet, lips turning dark as he held on to a scream that threatened to escape. He must have kicked really hard.

Vhido helped Allen up, while Chaozii offered to pull Kanda up by his elbow. Kanda was so distracted by the pain that he didn't notice he was being helped up until he was back on his feet, at which he promptly slapped Chaozii's hand away.

"I'm sorry that I kicked you, but you were about to strangle me to death." Allen said calmly. "And the breakfast incident was purely accidental. If you had been calm enough to let me apologize properly about it, I would have taken care of your clothes and you wouldn't have to walk out with food dripping all over you in front of everyone."

Kanda kept his dignity by not jumping on him again, but he still growled. "Watch it, prick, while you're still alive."

"Fine. But don't ever expect me to say sorry about this morning after how you've treated me." Allen said coldly, and turned to Daisya. "Thanks for introducing me to everyone. But I'll be going now, since I don't want to be facing _that_ anymore."

"You little—" Kanda began.

"Bye, Krory. And Chaozii and Vhido. See you around, everyone." He swiftly cut off Kanda and smiled sweetly at everybody else with a light wave before stomping out of the courtyard. Startled at how things had turned out with Allen walking out of this alive, they only dumbly waved back.

"Oh, yeah, see you later, Allen…"

* * *

><p>Thank you, all those who have reviewed and have left SUCH encouraging comments! Seriously, you people are so nice and polite :D<p>

So please review! again and again! XDDD

So, two physical encounters in a same day...all before noon. Not in a good way.

Also, apologies about the mass of information that was not delivered in a very interesting way. It's just how the Bookman talks in my imagination. It would have helped if he talked more in the manga, but since he doesn't, I have to make up how he talks, and he talks in dense paragraphs. Because he's old. lol.

And about my updating pace! I just have to say: SO sorry! I know, this once-in-a-month pace is ridiculous, but for this chapter, I can explain. I was in a three-week vacation in a foreign country, and I only got back four days ago. But notice how this chapter is looooong?

PS. this Vhido kid is my own made-up character. Just in case few of you might be trying to remember if he was in the manga or something. It's just that DGM has really few characters compared to other manga out there and I can't make this story purely out of original characters.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

After spending some time fuming in the library and attempting to read some of the books while he waited, he went back to the courtyard. This time there was no one in the field. Allen waited in a corner for about five minutes until Reever appeared.

The man waved enthusiastically at him.

"So, how's your day been so far? Have you eaten?"

Allen realized he had forgotten lunch, but he had had a late breakfast anyway. "Yes, I'm alright."

"Good." Reever rubbed his hands together like an excited boy. "Then let's get started. Komui told me that you told him that you did some accidental sorcery before you came here. I know that they were accidental, but could you try to do them again if you can?"

Allen nodded and tried to remember how he had done it. He concentrated, and struggled to go back to the moment where he could _feel_ each particle in the air, as if they were all conscious of the boy and were trying to communicate with him. Then he flicked a finger half-unconsciously.

Out of the blue, a whirlpool of wind appeared around the two and after ruffling them up a bit for a few seconds, disappeared, leaving them looking severely windswept.

"Impressive." Said Reever as he patted down his hair. "It was a lot more coordinated than I had expected. I was waiting to see, you know, a little breeze or something. The uniform circular motion was particularly impressive."

"The wind was never that strong before, though. It was a lot easier to do this time." Allen confessed.

"Figures. I mean, I told you that though you can't really feel it anymore, this place is saturated with sorcerous energy. Sorcery conducts a lot better in here than through empty air. Now, let me see what you did with your finger again."

Allen thought for a moment and placed his index finger and his middle finger side-by-side, touching each other. Then he curved them inward a little and gave a little flicking motion. "I think it was this."

"Hmm." Reever took his hand. "You never learned his gesture from anyone did you?"

The boy shook his head.

Reever spoke as he bent Allen's fingers into a particular shape. "It's interesting that your body subconsciously _knew_ the necessary gesture for that particular sorcery you just performed. The actual proper shape is this, however."

Allen looked at his hand, which now had his fourth finger and pinky lined up against each other and forming a ring with his thumb. But his index and middle finger were how he had positioned them before.

"Now, try what you did again, but with this." Said Reever.

Allen took a deep breath and searched for that particular odd feeling again. When it seemed that he could sense all the dust in the air around him, he flicked his hand.

Sudden wind blown directly into his eyes caused Allen to flinch and blink. And when he looked back up, he saw that he was in the air.

He met Reever's eyes as the man was similarly up in the air. Then they both screamed.

_What—HOW? What just happened? Why am I—_

Thoughts passed through Allen like lightening as they began their downward drop. And when he was nearly close enough to kiss the earth, his body stopped on its fatal fall only about a foot from the ground. He floated in an awkward position in the air for a split second, then he fell the rest of the way with a loud "oof".

Reever was already up and was offering a hand to help the boy up. He had a strange, slightly maniacal expression as he spoke excitedly.

"I can't believe this! Oh—GOD! Komui needs to know this immediately—but I suppose I can't just run you out on a lesson, eh?"

"Did I just…" Allen frowned, confused. "Hurl ourselves into the air?"

"Yes!" Reever exclaimed with tiny bits of spit shooting out. He wiped his mouth hastily. "From what I estimate, nearly twenty feet. The ascension was so smooth I didn't even notice I was up there until I saw it! _Do you have any idea how difficult it is to raise two human beings VERTICALLY into the air using just wind power?_ And that high! We could have been instantly killed if I hadn't pulled myself together at the last moment!" He added joyfully.

Allen wanted to ask how that was a good thing, when Reever grabbed his shoulders tightly.

"Let's. Do. Some. More."

Reever made Allen do a few more hand gestures (fortunately, all easy enough for his wretched stiff hand) afterwards. All Allen needed to do was to concentrate and struggle to keep the wind under his control, and his hand did the rest of the action.

He finally realized why the sorcery lesson took place in a vast, open courtyard and not in a room. The gestures Reever gave had Allen directing knife-sharp gusts of wind flying everywhere, or even nearly drilling a wide hole into the ground. Ten minutes later the smooth field was mutilated so much that one could not walk across it without falling into a chasm or breaking a leg.

Allen cringed when his last gust of wind cut a deep gash across the white stone wall, but Reever was ecstatic. Allen thought he heard the man mumble something about a "jackpot".

However, when Reever showed him a particularly complicated assemble of fingers, Allen looked at him, crestfallen.

"I can't do it." He said. He demonstrated his ineptitude by trying to copy what Reever was doing and miserably failing at it.

"Oh. Stiff fingers?"

"Severely stiff, the Bookman says." Allen said wretchedly.

But to his relief, Reever didn't seem to mind it too much. "Well, there are always pentacles if we can't help it. But the important part is that you have such strong sorcerous energy in you that it's a mystery why it was never discovered before. I need to take you to Komui Lee right now."

They broke into a near jog as Reever led him into a large building in the distance. The elaborate architecture made it look like a tiny palace.

"That is where the sorcerers of high status reside." Reever explained.

They passed the gigantic black gate carved with Runes and entered a wide hall of marble pillars and golden embellishments on the walls. After climbing several steps up onto the third floor, Reever swiftly led the boy into the largest door visible on the hall and rammed his knuckles on it.

"Komui, it's Reever. Open up. It's urgent."

The two-piece door opened by itself to reveal Komui Lee, who was behind a large oak desk seated in the center of an enormous round room. Allen saw that the huge porcelain jug of coffee he had seen with Reever in the morning was standing on the corner of the desk. Komui was looking at Reever with surprised eyes.

"What's the matter? And hello, Allen."

Reever marched right up to the desk and slammed his palms down on it, leaning into Komui with wide eyes.

"How on earth did you know?" He demanded, out of the blue.

Komui blinked and leaned away from his junior sorcerer. "Know what?"

"About Allen's potential. I couldn't sense it at all. But he just demonstrated the strongest raw sorcerous power I've ever seen in an apprentice except for perhaps Kanda Yuu. There was no way I couldn't feel that much power, but I still can't. How could _you_ do it?"

"I—I told you yesterday morning, I felt an internal energy."

"But you couldn't exactly tell how much, right?"

"No, I couldn't."

Reever let out a relieved sigh. "Alright, good. I thought I had lost my senses or something. But that aside; Komui, you lucky bastard, Allen is so powerful that's unbelievable. You've hit a jackpot. But how come we couldn't detect it?"

Komui shrugged. "We can deal with that later. But Reever, how powerful?"

"He flicked a little half-_Seubbe_ and blew the two of us twenty feet up in air with a whirlwind."

Komui's eyes brightened. "Really? Allen, why don't you try—"

"Don't!" Reever said. "It's going to collapse the building. He's already destroyed the Eastern courtyard."

"Amazing." Now Komui eyed Allen with overly excited eyes. Why were these two men so thrilled to hear that Allen had demolished their living grounds?

At the end, Komui promised Reever that he will observe the collaborative night-session that night. Reever took Allen back to where the destroyed courtyard was, but into a long building nearby that turned out to be the classrooms. It contained a small library and small and large rooms with desks irregularly arranged with unmatched chairs. As Reever took him to a corner room, Allen saw that there were only three or four people in the entire building.

Reever sat Allen down on a random desk and placed a thick pile of paper next to him.

"Usually for a new apprentice, I would spend some days, if not weeks, training him or her to grasp the flow of energy and learning to direct it. However, you seem to have no problem with that already. So I'm going directly into the _languages_ of sorcery. Now, there are two types of languages. One is the ancient Runes; the Bookman should have checked your ability to pronounce the language, right? Good. He will be teaching you the language, written and spoken. The Runes are used in the construction and the study of sorcery. The second type is the more practically used language: pentacles and gestures. This one will be the one that I teach."

Reever explained that while practical sorcery begins with drawn pentacles, hand gestures are used to channel energy directly through the sorcerer's body and can amplify its power if well-executed. The lines of the pentacle and the finger arrangements worked the same way that they symbolized the sorcery performed, but the shapes didn't necessarily mirror the other. In fact, most pentacles and corresponding gestures seemed entirely irrelevant to a stranger who couldn't interpret the symbols.

As the desired effect of sorcery grew more complicated (ex. changing water currents to set ship routes compared to what Allen had done with gushes of wind), pentacles and gestures became more complex as well in order to direct sorcerous energy in a more subtle manner. As a result, in most cases like thus required a long series of finger-twisting gestures that usually induced mistakes. Therefore in some situations a carefully drawn pentacle would prove more useful.

However, whether a sorcerer uses pentacle or hands, the basic rule was that his body was a conductor for sorcerous energy, partially or directly. Therefore one needed to train himself to know the limits of his own body before it became too exhausted. Overuse of sorcery could be fatal for one's heart.

Reever then taught Allen the most basic manipulation of energy: pure illumination.

Allen stared down at the pentacle Reever had drawn for it. It was a circle with a dot in the center. A small ball of light floated above the center dot lazily.

"That's it?" Allen asked blankly. No wonder Johnny had laughed yesterday when he had asked for a lamp for the study in his basement.

Reever scoffed. "Kid, you can say that _after_ you learn to draw a perfect circle and place a dot in its dead center."

As Reever had warned, it turned out to be quite difficult to get the circle right. But after using up tens of pages of paper just drawing circles, Allen got the hang of swiveling his wrist just the right way to create a flawless circle.

After he carefully placed the dot, he looked up at Reever. "What do I do next?"

"Place a finger on the circle and direct the energy the same way you have directed the wind before, just into the pentacle instead this time."

Allen put his hand on the circle, cautious of accidentally smudging the ink. But the way Reever had described was a bit off. Allen hadn't exactly _directed_ the energy. He had only _felt_ it, grew conscious of it, and somehow it mirrored what his hand gestures had symbolized. He figured that that was what Reever had meant, and did what he said.

He concentrated on his surroundings until he could nearly feel the slight tense buzz of sorcerous energy around him, and the next moment, bright light was shining above the pentacle. Allen blinked rapidly from the sudden light.

Reever was grinning. "Excellent. Your power is still strong through pentacles as well."

Allen unconsciously smiled happily as well as he watched his light shining strongly. He wasn't going back to Cross after all. He could do this. He took his hand off the pentacle and touched the light with his fingers, feeling the heat from the radiation. It grew even brighter with contact.

"Wow." He whispered.

"Good job. Now try to keep it from going out and move it around."

Allen whipped his head at Reever. "I can move it around?"

"Sure. The pentacle was only there to create it. As long as you keep control of it, you can do whatever you want with it."

Allen stared at the light, wondering how on earth he was supposed to make it move. Then an idea flashed through his mind. He concentrated again, and this time imagined that there was a string of energy connecting the light and the tips of his fingers. He then made a small curling motion towards himself with his hand; the ball of light followed and floated closer towards Allen. It was now out of the pentacle.

Only inches away from him, the light was too bright. He pulled out some energy from it to dim it down to the size and brightness of a large firefly. As it sparkled and vibrated with energy, it almost seemed cute.

Allen then made it float idly around his head until a spark of humor lit up in his head; he sent it flying to Reever and made it fly in dizzying circles until it looked like Reever had a halo around him.

Meanwhile, Reever watched Allen have his fun with the light and became a little awestruck as Allen made it spin around his head. But it wasn't because he was shocked by the amount of control he had over the sorcery…well, it _was_ a part of it, but…when the boy giggled at the halo he had created, that small, delighted face softly illuminated by the light simply became breathtaking. He gulped loudly. No wonder Komui Lee, who had been a strict ladies' man made an exception for Allen…Who could resist those enormous grey eyes perfectly situated on the flawless pale skin, and those lips, shapely and soft and of shade of coral? And—

"Reever?"

The man blinked rapidly. The halo was gone, and Allen was looking down.

"I lost the light." The boy said miserably.

"Oh. That, erm. That's alright. That was more than I had expected, excellent." He said hurriedly. He tried to hide his blush as he drew Allen another pentacle to try.

As the Bookman had promised, Reever ended his session early; a little after four. By then Allen had memorized nine different pentacles. He could only make his hand work for just one of them, but Reever was still impressed with his demonstration of skill.

"Today was just about learning the basic pentacles, and you'll be doing that for some time. But soon you'll realize that there is no such thing as a standard pentacle or a dictionary of pentacles; if you know the language of the pentacles, you'd be able to draw new ones according to your needs whenever you want. That skill will come a bit later. For now, it's useful to get the hang of the foundation and seeing the connection between them." Reever had said.

As soon as Allen arrived at his living quarters with the heap of books Reever had given him, he set on practicing illuminating immediately. When he had asked Reever how to fix a light into stability, the man had only smiled and told him to figure it out on his own. Determined, Allen sat down on his small dining table and drew the circle-and-dot pentacle in the center of the surface. Without activating it, he stared intently into the drawing as he thought.

The light had disappeared when he took his mind off it. So how did he keep it permanent?

He placed a finger on the pentacle and concentrated his mind. He had figured out that when he focused like that, the sorcerous energy around him became "active" and executed what was drawn on the pentacle. Immediately a ball of light flicked into life.

When he lost concentration, it was as if that active energy suddenly became passive and no longer useable. He needed to "lock" the energy into a state of activeness somehow. It couldn't be that he was to draw a key around it.

When his head began to hurt, he put his forehead down on the table and groaned. This was too hard. It wasn't fair for Reever to give this as homework when he had barely grasped the concept of pentacles.

Lock the energy…lock the energy…lock it in…

He idly picked his pen back up and dipped it in ink.

Trap it in…

Slowly, and cautiously, Allen drew a smaller concentric circle around the center dot inside the pentacle.

"There, I trapped it." Allen muttered to himself. It seemed ridiculous, but he decided to try. He focused and the light appeared again. However, it still flicked off just as easily.

He put his head down on the surface again, depressed. Of course it couldn't work. How was putting a "wall" around it supposed to do anything?

Then a crazy thought passed his mind. His head shot up. But he instantly laughed at himself. The very idea was stupid. But still…

Allen created his ball of light for the umpteenth time that day. Then, while keeping it alive, he took his pen and filled in the smaller circle with ink into a solid black. Now the pentacle had a large black circle instead of a dot.

He set down the pen, and carefully cut off his concentration.

The light remained alive.

Allen began to breathe hard with disbelief and amazement. He had done it. By filling in the smaller circle, he had created a "lid" on top of the circular "room" he had previously made around the dot. Because the light was already there when he closed the "lid" on it, it stayed shining.

It was literally trapped, locked in.

"This is ridiculous." He told himself.

Sorcery worked on this kind of concepts? Because he made an imaginary room around the dot, the energy was actually trapped inside? What kind of a vague law was that?

The ball of light merrily sparkled above his table, strongly alive. Allen watched it for a while until he decided to try something. He put a finger on the blacked-out circle and gave it more energy.

He was momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness that filled the entire room. He took his finger off, but the light stayed bright.

So even with the "lid" closed, he could still inject energy into it. Then he must be able to take it out, too.

As he had thought, he was able to dim the light down to the point it was comfortable again. He grinned proudly at his creation.

It was only a small ball of light, but it was a start. All sorcerers must have begun how Allen had. He had once thought that he might waste his youth at the brothel and eventually his life away with whatever meaningless occupations in his later years. He had never thought he had a gift or a talent for anything else. But here, he was someone with meaning. He could hold his head up with dignity among the sorcerers and become a useful _somebody_ for this country. And he didn't think he was too bad, either. Hadn't he received praises from Reever and Komui, who claimed that Allen was special?

He felt all his concerns melt away as the light burned on strongly like his growing hope.

Sorcery was indeed marvelous.

* * *

><p>I updated as fast as I could! It's a shorter chapter, but I didn't want to drag this day on more. This and the two chapters before that all had been about a same day...O.O<p>

Again, thank you for all those who read and/or review. You guys give me the motivation to continue :D

Off to write the next chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Allen still dreamt about Mana, even after five years.

Sometimes his adopted father came like an angel. He shone like a heavenly being coming down to pay Allen a visit, and that sheer light, that sense of pure hopefulness left Allen to wake smiling only to cause tears to fall later when he realized it was only a dream. It was typical of the foolish human heart to desperately grasp onto the moments past. Allen would believe that he was fine now, that he could face his world alone, that he was grown, that he was strong…

But he wasn't, and that fact was painfully clear; a mere reminder of how things could have been made his taut expression to shudder and become paralyzed by the complete, overwhelming sadness that crashed down on his eyelids and shoulders. It was even more unbearable that he couldn't remember the man's face anymore, or his voice. The hazy, brown-haired ghost with warm large hands tugged on his soul like an invisible stone embedded somewhere in his heart that he couldn't find.

Sometimes his dreams were bits of their memories long gone. A soft leather jacket Mana had managed to purchase after months of saving, just for Allen. Allen plucking out a strand of white hair from Mana's brown head. Mana pointing at the moon. Mana's shoelaces. The man and the boy talking about the weather, just talking…

After these dreams, Allen always cried a little when he woke up because he never wanted them to end.

This morning was one of those days that Mana visited him. Allen couldn't exactly remember what was that he dreamt, but he was weighed down by such intense grief that he downright broke and sobbed for the first time in ages. He covered his face under his palms waiting for his gasps to subside.

It took him thirty minutes for him to manage to get out of the bed. He shivered from the morning chill and found a large woolen sweater that lay over a chair. Pulling the sweater on, he washed his face from the basin and blinked to clear his eyes.

Allen had to sit down on the bed again when he felt a little weak on his legs. He tried to swallow in the faint remnants of hiccups while he looked out the bedroom window.

It wasn't quite dawn yet. Cold yellow light was seeping from under the horizon into the navy sky, and Allen felt utterly alone in the darkness of his room facing the starless heavens. He closed his eyes and imagined himself flying through the window and into the sky—no, he imagined the _sky_ breaking through the glass and engulfing him with its thick, velvety darkness. Only when he floated alone in the center of the universe he would be able to express the vast emptiness he felt inside.

_Look at the stars, look how they shine for you._

Mana had said that. Why he remembered that suddenly, he couldn't say. But he tilted his head back, his eyes still closed, towards the black sky.

Then a world of stars and constellations spread across his vision like light. He hadn't forgotten the stars he had seen with his father. The shadows of the stars remained in his mind like strong light that lingered in one's vision even after closing your eyes. He didn't realize he had begun to fall tears again until a drop crawled down his neck.

He opened his eyes after what seemed like forever. It turned out it hadn't been a long time, because it was still dark outside. But he saw that the icy light over the horizon had at one point turned yellow and pink, dying the heaven with its warmth like watercolor dropped on paper.

A gust of morning wind blew into the room through an open slit in the window. Allen instinctively crossed his arms from the chill air, tucking his hands into the protection of the thick woolen sleeves. He then remembered that the sweater was Lavi's, who had seen that Allen didn't have much pieces of clothing on his person.

"Spring mornings are cold," he had said a few days ago, while shoving his thickest sweater into the protesting boy's arms.

Allen rubbed his hands along his forearms to warm his skin up. All the while he gazed out the window, watching the golden sunshine as it laid itself out on the white surfaces of the roofs and cobblestone paths. The sounds of birds began to decorate the air. From somewhere far away Allen could already hear a couple people talking. He noticed that the two voices were approaching, and soon the distant heads revealed themselves to be Johnny's and Krory's. They passed Allen's house some distance away, complaining about something like a pair of boots that had fallen apart too quickly. Allen couldn't suppress a light smile when Krory tried to defend the brand, which he obviously was fond of. Soon the two men were too far away again for Allen to hear their conversation.

The sunlight now began to leak into Allen's room, too. Allen felt himself warming up just by watching that ambient light. How had he been suffocating in grief only moments ago, when the world was warm and bright and filled with people he had quickly come to laugh along with?

He fingered Lavi's sweater and a stray strand of wool.

No, he wasn't alone.

* * *

><p>Look at the stars,<p>

Look how they shine for you

And everything you do,

Yeah, they were all yellow.

This is by Coldplay, called _Yellow_. I love this song. When I heard it for the first time, I listened to it over and over until I cried-from personal reasons.

And a funny thing, too. I write this story on a computer that doesn't have my itunes library on it, so when I listen to music I listen off Youtube. I searched for "Yellow", and saw the music video for the first time. And the entire music video consisted of the vocalist walkind down a beautiful cloudy beach while the sky dawns. It ends as the sun finally rises up the horizon and fills the screen with pink light. Just like how this chapter consists of the time duration during sunrise. I got goosebumps when I realized I had unknowingly replayed the scene in the music video in this chapter. I guess the song just makes you envision that same thing, and the band did a good job of catching that in their video.

It's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.


End file.
